IEXA — the Interoperability and Exchange Alliance — is an open, community-governed framework enabling trusted, decentralised data ecosystems. Exchange invoices, identity and trusted data across borders — while keeping data sovereignty in African hands.
Every new partner multiplies point-to-point connections. A shared network turns that into a single connection each.
Messages travel node-to-node; data stays at its source. No central honeypot, no foreign custody of the continent's most valuable asset.
Institutions request verified data from the source, with consent — instead of re-collecting documents people have already given.
From invoicing to identity, a single trust framework any country, fintech or agency can join — without rebuilding integrations.
Africa's data is fragmented across silos, vendors and borders. IEXA sets the open rules, the trust framework, and the federation model — so that anyone can exchange data with anyone, securely and sovereignly, without rebuilding integrations every time.
Public, versioned specifications for how data is described, signed and transported — developed through an open RFC process anyone can contribute to.
Specs & profilesA verification & accreditation framework with conformance testing, so every participant is provably who they claim to be and "IEXA-certified" means genuinely interoperable and secure.
Verification & trustDecentralised, interoperable Clearing Houses and open-source access points — no single point of control. Any fintech, ERP or agency can join the network in hours.
Clearing Houses & SDKsEach member runs (or rents) a secure node — the only thing they integrate with. Through IEXA's shared registry and trust services, that single connection reaches every other participant. No point-to-point integrations, no central data store.
A business, bank or government agency that needs to send data.
A secure gateway that signs, encrypts and routes the message onto IEXA.
The receiver's node, discovered via the shared registry & trust list.
The destination — paid invoice, verified identity, exchanged record.
Citizens and businesses should provide the same information to government once — never again. IEXA lets institutions request verified data straight from the source, with consent, instead of asking people to re-submit documents they've already given. Less paperwork, less fraud, more trust.
IEXA is one framework hosting many data spaces — sectoral ecosystems that share the same trust framework and federation. We lead with verified identity — the foundation every other exchange depends on — and extend from there.
Privacy-preserving exchange of verified identity attributes, KYC credentials and proof-of-address — the wedge use case. Consent-driven, cryptographically signed proofs shared only with trusted parties, interoperable with national identity and addressing systems.
Available · v0.1Standardised e-invoice exchange between businesses, ERPs and tax authorities, with a strong regulatory tailwind across the continent.
Available · v0.1A general-purpose envelope for any domain — health, logistics, open finance — that adopts the IEXA trust framework.
On roadmapIEXA doesn't replace the world's standards — it binds them together. We map to the global rails for documents, payment initiation, and tax compliance, so an IEXA invoice can be paid, settled and reported anywhere.
Fiscal "receipt lotteries" — proven in Portugal, Italy, Greece and beyond — reward consumers for requesting a real invoice, turning every buyer into a tax-compliance enforcer. IEXA bakes lottery-eligible receipt IDs into the invoice profile, so any member country can launch a VAT lottery on day one and widen the formal economy.
IEXA is a neutral, not-for-profit association. Governance is shared across its members — no single company owns the standard.
Developers, students & researchers
Fintechs, vendors & ERPs
Regulators & public agencies
The work happens in the open, led by maintainers and shaped by the community — through national Hubs, an Academy, and real-world Lighthouse projects.
Country chapters — starting with Nigeria — that localise the framework, run events and connect members on the ground.
Free training, certification and mentorship that turns students and young developers into the engineers who run Africa's data infrastructure.
Flagship deployments — a live e-invoicing data space, a cross-border identity pilot — that prove the framework in the real world.
A transparent, milestone-driven path — every step open and community-reviewed.
Association charter, v0.1 invoicing & identity specs, public sandbox and the first Member Nodes.
Live e-invoicing and cross-border identity deployments with founding members and a national Hub.
Certification with the DPG Alliance — the credibility stamp that unlocks donor and government adoption.
Trust federation across national Hubs — one interoperable data ecosystem, 54 countries.
IEXA isn't a slide deck — it's running code. Read the specs, run the reference network on your machine in one command, and start contributing. Everything is Apache-2.0.
The full reference implementation — Registry, Member Node, signed envelopes — in Go. Star it, fork it, open a PR.
surdykbaba/iexaRun a tiny IEXA network locally — a Registry and two nodes exchanging a signed invoice —
with bash scripts/demo.sh.
JSON Schema for the message envelope and the invoicing & identity profiles — the standard anyone can implement.
Envelope · Invoice · IdentityHow the four-corner, federated trust model works: nodes, registry, Ed25519 signing and verification — no central data store.
Trust modelThe Concept & Founding Framework (v0.1) — vision, governance, data spaces and roadmap. The recruiting document.
Download .docxPick a working group, run a node in the sandbox, or propose a change through the open RFC process. Newcomers welcome.
Good first issuesWhether you write code, run infrastructure or set policy — there's a seat for you. Join the community shaping how the continent exchanges data.